


like walking on hot sand (but with sandals or something)

by Cancer



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Other, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 00:16:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19414489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cancer/pseuds/Cancer
Summary: "Of all the things they have in common (which are not supposed to be many), it is possible the most important one is how much they enjoy the human way of living. No matter how much the humans fuck up (and they do, a lot), the freedom they were granted, the opportunity to know things in feelings rather than knowledge, to live in ignorance and yet enjoy it, it’s something Crowley knows neither of them want to lose. "





	like walking on hot sand (but with sandals or something)

The truth is, demons can’t just walk into a church like walking on the afternoon sand at the beach with no shoes. But Crowley doesn’t know this.

There is originally only one way a demon can walk on consecrated ground: by using a medium—a person or group of people who are either possessed or who willingly carry them inside or summon them there. The stronger the demon the more difficult it is to get inside. If done in the wrong way, the demon could get discorporated or even die.

When Crowley walks into that church on 1941 to save Aziraphale from the Nazis, he doesn’t know this information. Neither does Aziraphale. Demons don’t often attempt to walk into churches, and of course they’ve been told is trespassing, but what demon would want to go into a church anyway?

Not only does Crowley not know this, he’s also on a mission. He imagines before getting in the car, “it’s probably like walking on hot sand,” and so it is. It’s not pleasant—everything has a lowkey burn to it and he feels the itch to run away under the shade, where is cool, but he’s not in immediate danger of vanishing.

It doesn’t occur to him he could be in immediate danger of vanishing. In any case, the angel needs to be saved and that’s the pressing matter.

\---

Crowley went to the beach for the first time in Mesoamerica sometime around the 1500’s when colonization was still ongoing. He didn’t like Cortés.

In retrospective, colonization was probably part of the Great Plan, and so he figures it made sense for him to want to mess it up a little. In reality, he didn’t do anything major, just went to the beach, swam a little, learned to read some ancient texts, got some colonizers lost in the jungle, asked a bunch of questions about human sacrifices, and then decided it was time to go back to the old continent. There was too much going on in the new place and it looked like shit was about to go down.

Crowley doesn’t think Aziraphale ever learned to swim.

They do have a lot in common despite what it may seem or how much Aziraphale has denied it. They like simple things and they enjoy simple human pleasures. Clever creatures, humans.

They are inherently different too, however, and while Aziraphale is a bit of an adventurous creature, he doesn’t feel the need to adventure in things that could possibly be dangerous if he doesn’t have to. Learning to dance? Absolutely. Surfing? Unnecessary. Crowley is certain he didn’t learn to swim, but sometimes thinks it would be nice to go together to see the ocean from the sand, just to see it, for no reason. Spend a few nights someplace where they get people to cook for them and clean their room even if it’s not necessary. Like a vacation. Clever humans and their vacations.

\---

There are many things that Crowley’s done that Aziraphale doesn’t approve of. That’s kind of the point. Crowley should be happy about it but the truth is that he doesn’t really like it when Aziraphale doesn’t trust him. An angel has no business trusting a demon and Crowley ought to behave like what he is once in a while, just to help him keep it in check, because he forgets, sometimes, when he spends too much time with the angel, that what they do is rule to their nature and not a game they're playing, getting to know the locals, finding good spots for lunch, doing some tempting and some miracles.

He forgets because Hell spends long periods of time not contacting him at all and it often feels that what he does, he does it because Aziraphale will pay attention to him then, try to fix his messes maybe, be on the other side of the fallout, laugh at him and what he did, and may or may not do something about it.

He forgets but Aziraphale takes his badge more seriously. And so when Crowley asks, “would I ever lie to you?” he means for it to be rhetorical, not for Aziraphale to say “of course you would, you’re a demon!”

And that’s the problem, maybe. That Crowley would never direct any of his demonic actions to Aziraphale. That no matter how much he ‘tempts’ him, he would never do wrong to the angel. But he can’t prove it, can’t make him believe it because that’s not how it works. He can’t tell Aziraphale, “there is nothing I would ever do to hurt you. I would rather fall again and believe me if I tell you it wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

There is only waiting for him to realize that Crowley is nothing he’s supposed to be when they’re together.

It takes him over a hundred years, bombarding some Nazis, but mostly saving his books, to make Aziraphale trust him. (Trust him as much as an angel would).

Aziraphale shouldn’t trust him. Crowley knows he shouldn’t be trusted by an angel. He also knows it hurts a lot every time Aziraphale accuses him of bad things happening like he truly believes Crowley would do that—cause the French revolution, initiate a German spy circle in London. It _hurts_ , and it shouldn’t.

\---

Of all the things they have in common (which are not supposed to be many), it is possible the most important one is how much they enjoy the human way of living. No matter how much the humans fuck up (and they do, a lot), the freedom they were granted, the opportunity to _know_ things in feelings rather than knowledge, to live in ignorance and yet enjoy it, it’s something Crowley knows neither of them want to lose.

\---

Crowley thinks about God sometimes.

If the plans are, as Aziraphale says, “ineffable”—and they must be, since, well, _God_ —then nothing they have done was ever “a secret” to God.

Maybe, he thinks, it had to be them. Who else would have wanted to stay on earth, to be fair?

Maybe doing the wrong thing was always the right thing to do. If there is something to say about the equilibrium of the universe (which exists), then maybe the fallen didn’t fall because they did what they weren’t supposed to do. Maybe they fell because God needed them to fall.

It was incredibly easy to fall back then, after all.

\---

Aziraphale, just as Crowley, knows that things must end at some point. If there is good there must be evil, if there is a beginning there must be an end.

Though after the whole Armageddon thing, Crowley suspects that God wouldn’t bother telling anyone when, how or where things were going to end.

\---

When Crowley receives the baby, he realizes six thousand years are not enough time for anything.

Suddenly they’re running out of time, and it’s not so much that he minds dying—though he does enjoy the ‘being alive’ business; he also enjoys the other creatures being alive, whales are too good to be gone, he wasn’t playing with that—it’s that he’s done with war. He doesn’t want one as big as that one would be. He doesn’t want to have to fight angels over the heads of humans. He doesn’t want the whole thing to go up (or down) in flames. He just got Aziraphale to trust him not that long ago, it took him over a hundred years, he will never forgive him if he can’t have crêpes and tea ever again. So, he’s got to do what he’s got to do but maybe he can get Aziraphale to help him stop it. It’s what they’ve been doing for centuries after all.

\---

Not once, in the thousands of years they’ve known each other, Crowley has never invited Aziraphale to go home with him. He’s been to Aziraphale’s place plenty of times. But that’s the thing. It all depends, he supposes, on who would get in trouble. If Crowley goes to the angel’s place, heaven can’t blame the angel for it; it is the demon who walked in. And sure, maybe Aziraphale could kick him out as he should do, but that wouldn’t really stop him from coming back. Crowley can do whatever he wants, breaking the rules is the rule for demons (sort of).

Crowley can go wherever he wants. He can have whoever he wants home too, but Aziraphale can’t just go home with him.

Crowley likes to pretend that’s it, though the real reason why he’s never invited him is because he knows angel would say “no”. But he wants to think he would say no because he can’t, not because he doesn’t want to go.

He chooses to believe that, if things were easier, they could be anywhere together. Aziraphale would spend the evenings at his place and they would drink and eat cake without having to hide among books or human people in crowded places.

Not having invited him, however, doesn’t mean he never thought about it. And in all the times he thought about it, not once did he dare to think that Aziraphale would actually _go_.

\---

Crowley doesn’t know Aziraphale always took him to his place because he didn’t want Crowley to get in trouble. Demons have far sharper noses than angels. They are more suspicious too. It was easier for him to tell the angels there were some cursed books in the shop to cover the smell of Crowley there than for Crowley to explain the smell of angel in his flat, no matter how much he was sure the other demons never actually visited. Aziraphale wasn’t about to risk it.

(If he also liked the way Crowley smelled, a little like Indian spices and good scotch and decomposing books, nobody needed to know that).

\---

When Crowley tells Aziraphale that he can stay at his place, a part of him thought that maybe he should stop and wonder if it would be weird. Sharing a bed. Sleeping with an angel. (There was a joke there somewhere, he’s sure, about letting your demons sleep, or waking up the good in you, or a demon and an angel walk into a bar… and the rest is history—but he’s good at pranks not so much at jokes).

It’s not, really.

They walk in in silence, Aziraphale takes off his shoes and Crowley takes off his glasses. The place is not big, per se, just the kind of place a demon or an angel would have, where things just _are_ , suddenly, when necessary, so the bedroom is not to the right or the left, it just is when they open the door to it. Crowley would have thought Aziraphale would miracle himself a bed, a pillow, a blanket or something (was hoping he didn’t but thought he would), but he sits on the edge of the mattress in his underwear, smiling a little despite himself, and he looks like an old maid, Crowley thinks. Aziraphale has always looked a bit like an old maid. Too innocent while secretly knowing too much.

Crowley wouldn’t have thought it would feel normal, but then again, he also didn’t think they could defeat Satan, and yet. There was nothing really to defeat.

Crowley never shared a bed before—it’s never been his type of temptation—so it’s surprising he doesn’t mind, sharing the space, not being able to move all around. He never moves too much, though. And he’s always sharing his space lately it seems.

It’s not too bad, one could say, when they lie down looking at the ceiling, and he extends his hand on top of the sheets, so it’s not a secret and there are no doubts or spaces for confusion or denial, and Aziraphale holds it, softly but with meaning.

 _We are on our side,_ he thinks. _We have always been only on our side._

And it doesn’t sound bad, maybe because he can see the stars from right there, miracles an all, and Alpha Centauri looks more beautiful from afar, as long as he doesn’t have to look for it by himself.


End file.
